Like The Tomato
Nothing here but my musings about daily life, books, anime, and food.
- Title: Tomie
- Author: Junji Ito
- Genre: Manga, Horror
- Pages: 752
- Publisher: VIZ Media
- Published: 2016
I am not a horror reader. So picking this up for a read is out of character for me. What made me interested in it? My roommate and I went to a Japanese bookstore a while back and she bought this tome. She read it and liked it. And I wanted to see what this is all about. As I flipped through the pages of this chunker, I got hooked on the artwork. So I decided to read it.
Tomie was Junji Ito’s first published work which led to him winning a Kazuo Umezu award. This has been serialized in Monthly Halloween and ran from 1987 to 2000. This work has been adapted into film and television series. Let’s just say that this manga was (is) well-loved, gathered a following, and has been praised by fans as well as critics.
The titular character is Tomie Kawakami who acted like a succubus. She has the power to make any man fall in love with her. Of course, the power does not end there. This ability of hers drives men to violence oftentimes leading to her being killed and mutilated. Each body part regenerates to create multiple versions of Tomie across Japan. I mean, interesting right?
This manga is pretty graphic. I mean, one of the reasons why I decided to pick it up is the fact that the author did not shy away from the illustrations of violence. This manga definitely delivered some skin-crawling artwork that lives rent-free in my brain. There is a story in this collection that still makes me itchy just thinking about it.
It’s easy to complain about recurring themes in this manga. I mean, how many times can someone read and see Tomie being murdered and mutilated by the men who fall in love with her. However, Tomie showed a level of toxicity when someone is manipulative and narcissistic. It showed obsession and the desire to possess remarkably well. And jealousy too. These themes heavily reflected society – manipulation, humiliation, misogyny, violence, and sexism.
Bottom line, I liked this manga. It was a good read for sure. Some stories were better than the others of course. My favorite stories were Tomie (the first one, we got introduced to Tomie) and Hair (which involved two girls using Tomie’s hair to make themselves “beautiful”). If I could redo my first read of this collection, I wouldn’t have read the stories back to back. I personally think that the reader was not meant to read this back to back to begin with. However, that didn’t really minimize my reading experience. Just the symbolism found in this manga kept me reading. It almost made me want to read all of Junji Ito’s works (almost, I have not committed myself to them yet).
- Anime Title: given
- Episodes: 11 episodes, 1 movie, 1 special episode
- Where to Watch: Crunchyroll
- Publisher: Fuji Creative Corporation
- Title: given
- Author: Natsuki Kizu
- Genre: BL, Drama
- Volumes: 8
- Run: April 30, 2013 to March 30, 2023
I found this anime by accident. I do not remember what I was doing at the time. I could be studying, which was a high possibility. But I found this one night and stayed up for hours to actually finish the anime. And I have rewatched this anime many times since then.
The anime has two major arcs – Ritsuka and Mafuyu arc, and Akihiko and Haruki arc. The manga has three arcs – the first two being the same as the anime and the third being the Hiiragi and Shizusumi arc.
The first arc focused on the Ritsuka and Mafuyu relationship. From the moment they met on the stairs of the gym to their first live performance. Ritsuka was the genius lead guitarist, and Mafuyu was the shy musical genius vocalist. I enjoyed seeing Ritsuka’s journey in coming to terms with his feelings for Mafuyu and his music. It was young love and I was there for it. There was also the journey of the band itself and how it grew. A watcher could leave it as that. Enjoy the ride of young love and great music. But this was also a story about grief and moving on. About opening your heart to new love. It was amazing. All the things that needed to be said to a past lover all wrapped into one song. Did it pull at my heartstrings? Yes. And I cried every single time that song played.
The second arc focused on the relationship between Akihiko and Haruki. Akihiko was the playboy drummer, and Haruki was the leader of the band and bassist. Now, this was a story of unrequited love. It was so relatable that it was difficult to watch. It was too real. We have all been there. Admiring someone from afar. Deeping those feelings for someone as time goes on. Being heartbroken because for some reason or another, that other person just does not see you the same way. It was hard. Seeing these characters in pain because they were hurting each other or just the pain in the situation they were in, let’s just say that my heart broke for the people in this arc.
The third arc focused on Hiiragi and Shizusumi’s relationship. These two were Mafuyu’s childhood friends and also Yuki’s bandmates. Another young love. But more focused on Hiiragi coming to terms with his feelings for Shizusumi and Shizusumi’s unrequited love for Hiiragi. It was a whole misunderstanding trope and all that. This was pretty good as well. Shizusumi stayed by Hiiragi’s side this whole time while watching Hiiragi put Yuki on such a pedestal. Hiiragi trying to make Shizusumi understand that he was never in love with Yuki, to begin with. Ugh. Such angst.
So the first arc for anime was a serialized anime with 11 episodes. The second arc was a one-hour movie. And the third arc was manga only. The manga has 8 volumes although volume 8 is not available in English yet, which I am patiently waiting for. (Per Amazon, the title will be released on Oct 10, 2023.)
I say give it a try. My hun did. He liked it enough. I loved it. I think I said before that this was not a 5-star for me. But you know what, after rewatching the anime this week, I don’t understand why I even said that it wasn’t. I mean sure I can find faults in it if I really try, but honestly, I don’t want to. That’s how much I love this story. And the soundtrack? I would even rewatch this anime just for the music alone. It’s that good.
Cindy, a reader that I’m following on YouTube, decided to host a readathon last month. The Asian Readathon. She had designed the readathon to be pressure free and somewhat lazy and after the video announcement, I agreed. Cindy had even provided a list of books for participant – including a list of books that will knock out four challenges (there were only five challenges in total).
I normally don’t get tempted to participate in readathons. Why? I have a problem with sticking to a TBRs. Sticking to a reading list had always been a difficult task for me. But I wanted to participate. I mean read one or two books that could satisfy four challenges and then read the group book. Total of 3 books a month, not difficult.
I prepared a non complicated TBR – 1 manga, 2 books. And I also prepared some back up books. Just in case I decided that I don’t want to read anything on the original TBR. Perfect.
Day 1 – I read 2 mangas – volume 1 of Tokyo Ghoul and Gantz. I don’t even know why decided to read 2 mangas when I know that reading even just 1 manga would KO 3 of the reading challenges. Whatever. My first day was good. And I felt like I was on a roll. I even read the first 2 short stories from the group book – A Thousand Beginnings and Endings.
Day 2 – picked up Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld to satisfy the challenge of reading a book that features an Asian intersectional character. I don’t even know if this counted since obviously Scott Westerfeld is not Asian. But I figured, why not, this book still features an Asian character in the LGBT community. To me, that counted. Anyway, tackled this book in tandem – physical book and audiobook. I mean, this book definitely caught my attention and I couldn’t put it down. I finished this book at the end of week 1.
Strong right? I really felt that I was on the right track. I mean what could go wrong? I only needed to finish the group book if I want to succeed this readathon.
Then the worst thing happened – READING SLUMP.
I couldn’t pick up a book after reading Afterworlds. I got invested to the story and I can’t seem to forget it. I tried reading some of the stories in the group book. Which I did succeed but there are stories that I had to skip just to get to the ones that interested me. It was horrible.
For the next couple weeks, I struggled hard to pick up a book, anything at that point. And nothing kept my interest. It was bad. I was pretty disappointed in myself really. I mean how could this have happened on the easiest readathon ever! I had no choice – I DNF’d the group book.
The moral of the story: Roma can’t do readathons. It would just end in disappointment.
Currently Reading: A Trail Through Time (The Chronicles of St. Mary’s) by Jodi Taylor